First, it never makes sense to apply laws developed for adults directly onto adolescents and children. The reasons an adult downloads or creates child pornography are dramatically different from the reasons that children or teenagers send pictures of themselves to others. Many others, much more eloquent than I will be able to talk about the reasons that the juvenile justice system was developed in the first place – to address the fact that our interventions with kids MUST be different than our interventions with adults.

Second, the impact of sexting on the victim can be devastating, regardless of whether the person distributing the materials is an adult, teenager or child. When I read that it is just “showing off online” it minimizes this potentially devastating impact.

Third, we clearly need a new response to hold the children and teens responsible for their inappropriate to harmful behaviors. Putting a child or teen on the sex offender registry does not help the victim OR teach the kid who posted the images the lessons they need to learn. The NY Times article talks about the first federal appellate opinion that said a prosecutor had gone too far by applying adult moral standards on a three teenage girls. The prosecutor threatened to bring child pornography charges against the girls whose “scantily dressed pictures” appeared on the cellphones of their classmates.

What would help?

Let’s start with prevention. This is an opportunity for friends, families and communities to get engaged. For today, here is one important suggestion. If you have not heard about the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, look at their work. Nancy Willard has developed a range of excellent materials for schools, parents and students. Looking at this website is an important first step and well worth your time.

Prevention is the key. Of course changing policy is a solution but it doesn't get to the root of the problem like prevention does. We need to get our children to stop thinking that this type of attitude/mentality is socially acceptable and get them to learn or something along those lines. When people get older and have on going relationships with people then maybe this would be ok but given the circumstances it's not morally acceptable with the present state of affairs. IDk that' just my two cents for what it's worth.

Oh and to further my argument just look at all the teen actors that are getting in trouble for this exact same thing. I can't think of one single disney star that's currently popular that hasn't had some type of scandal accompanying them into their careers. It's almost like a launching pad for these kids and that' what they are teaching our kids. It just isn't right. They all need to learn

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